Solupay Blog

Joe Musitano

Recent Posts

Signatures are no longer needed for EMV (chip) transactions for all major card types. In our recent article No Signature Required - Card Brands Look to Improve Checkout Times, we discussed some significant changes in the POS industry. At the tail end of 2017, MasterCard, Discover, and AmEx announced that they would implement policies that eliminate the need for signatures in point-of-sale EMV transactions. Visa was initially reluctant to comply, but recently gave up the fight and announced they too will eliminate the need for signatures on EMV POS transactions in North America beginning in April of 2018.

Visa announced in April 2018 they will be releasing new chargeback rules with a focus on improving the overall process for merchants with a new Visa Claims Resolution (VCR) process. Even for merchants who have taken all the steps and follow all the recommendations to avoid the likelihood of chargebacks, they are an unfortunate and inevitable fact of life in today's business environment. Whether it's a chargeback due to fraud, or friendly fraud where a customer disputes a charge they honestly don't remember making, they happen and can be a process pain for merchants. Visa's goal with VCR is to make the process simpler.

The introduction of EMV chip cards made huge strides in decreasing fraud, but only for in-store transactions. The increased security of credit and debit cards using chip technology has driven fraudulent traffic to CNP transactions and e-commerce. Card Not Present (CNP) Transactions are those that occur when the card is physically not present (online, over the phone, mobile transactions, etc), and therefore do not utilize the chip feature that EMV cards have. According to Visa, fraud has decreased 70 percent from October 2015 (when chip cards were introduced in the United States) to December 2017. However, chip cards are just as susceptible to CNP fraud as magnetic stripe cards.

This fall we saw some major announcements regarding changes in the way future POS credit card transactions were going to be processed. In October, MasterCard announced it would no longer require signatures at point-of-sale transactions in the U.S. and Canada beginning in April 2018. Shortly thereafter, Discover announced similar intentions, requiring no POS signatures, expanding this initiative to not only the U.S. and Canada, but also Mexico and the Caribbean. Not to be left behind, AmEx announced in early December it would also implement this changeinApril 2018on a global scale. At this time, VISA is the lone holdout, still requiring signatures atpoint-of-sale.Odds arethe antiquated signature requirementwill bedropped by Visa soonconsidering that it is difficult to provethat the signature was indeed the cardholder’s.

Card not present transaction fraud continues to rise since the establishment of the EMV chargeback liability shift last October. As card present transaction fraud decreases we've seen a direct increase in card not present transactions. CNP transactions include any payment made where the card is not physically present. As predicted, The US Payments Forum 2017 report concluded that the increase in security of chip cards forced fraudsters to focus their attention to CNP. They believe that this trend will continue into 2018 and we can expect to exceed $6 billion in fraud dollars.

Many merchants consider credit card processing fees as simply that... fees that are a normal part of doing business and a cut to their bottom line. But we challenge you to view credit card processing in a different light: As an opportunity to attract newer customers, increase shopping cart size with integrations, accept alternative payments and provide innovative and secure developments.

Earlier this year, Solupay was named 2017's Innovator of the Year because of our ability to focus on new and advanced features that are designed to not only make our clients operations easier, but to contribute to increasing their revenues.

For years, Becker Safety and Supply was accepting credit cards and saw the extra steps and inconveniences of their credit card acceptance program as just a nuance of business. Established in 1999, Becker is a wholesale/ distribution company providing protective clothing and tools for any industry where safety is a concern. Devin Becker quickly became excited by the many advances that Solupay provides with our Built for Oracle + NetSuite payments bundle.

If you are an online retailer, you know all too well the importance of creating a checkout that is as easy as possible and in as few steps as possible. But creating an easy, frictionless checkout becomes complicated when you add in necessary security features to process payment transactions. It is very easy for an online shopper to abandon their cart, change their mind, or Google their purchase elsewhere. Now there is a process called 3D Secure Advanced that has accomplished secure checkout, without the friction of the original 3D Secure. Here is how:

With CNP fraud on the rise since the EMV chargeback liability in the US took effect last year, it's in the best interest of retailers engaging in eCommerce and taking phone orders to increase their focus on securing those transactions. Here are 10 ways to detect and prevent fraud to avoid chargebacks on Card Not Present transactions:

Converting leads into sales is the bottom line of business. Getting a lead to the quoting stage of the sales lifecycle can be challenging enough. Depending on the length of your sales cycle, the process togenerate actual cash flowfrom a hot prospect turned new client can seemingly move along at a snail's pace. Here are 3 secrets to close the deals faster, converting leads and turningquotes to cashfor your business: